Checkmate
by Rurouni Star
Summary: [DracoHermione][oneshot] War is oddly like a game of chess...


A 5 am drabble for the "Hermione and " community. I love the concept, especially since I so often feel antsy in the middle of the night. People should go read-

www. livejournal .com/ community/ hermioneand/

**Checkmate  
****By Rurouni Star**

The two players stared at the board, their tea sitting still, long cold, in front of them.

"Your move, I think," one said quietly, voice carefully void of any betraying emotion.

The girl across from him wet her lips and stared, not at the pieces, but at him. His tie was loosened slightly, and his unusually pale face was shocking against pitch black robes - his own eyes were carefully set on the arrangement of pieces, watching everything and nothing all at once.

"Yes," she whispered, moving her piece, already ahead of him by three steps.

The seventh year Slytherin watched her hand as though it were the most important part of the game as it clutched the white piece between forefinger and thumb, dragging the bishop to the center of the board where it could feint toward his knight.

The rules were simple, the pieces black and white without the blurring shades of grey real life required. Because the enemy was, by necessity, simply an opponent to be destroyed. No room in the deadly game for anything but absolute conviction that your move was right, and that the other's was wrong.

"That leaves your queen open to attack," he observed quietly.

The Gryffindor girl smiled wanly, her features thin and drawn but still strangely attractive after such a long, long game. "I'm sacrificing it," she explained.

He regarded her seriously for a moment. "It's not a trade usually taken. It leaves you at a disadvantage."

She looked down at her clasped hands, sitting in her lap now, avoiding his gaze. "In special cases, it's worth it."

The blonde boy nodded as though he understood her strategy, slipping his knight around an 'L' curve and taking the pure white queen in his palm. Sacrifice taken.

He took a sip of his ice-cold tea as though it were still warm, icy silver eyes waiting for her reaction.

She moved the bishop again, out of attack range of the rook that might have taken it. Two moves until checkmate. He had to know it as well. Or perhaps he didn't - perhaps he was pretending. There was no way to know, the way his expression stayed - cold and hooded, with calculating eyes. Always looking for weaknesses, never giving any away.

Either way, he played along with her plan, moving his own bishop to cover his knight. Black on white, such a strange picture on such a large, barren battleground.

"Which side?" she asked him suddenly, staring at the black pawn about to be taken, trampled in the path to the king.

He smirked, still cold. "Which side is it you're wishing for?"

Her hand trembled as it picked up the teacup before her, her brown eyes staring into its depths, looking for secrets that weren't there.

"It's not that simple," she told him tiredly.

The boy shrugged then, and looked to her side of the board. "Your move again, then."

She set the tea down without drinking, moving as she'd intended. One move until checkmate.

He was studying her intently, though, and not looking at her last move. "Sometimes it must be that simple, you know."

The girl closed her eyes in pain. "Must it?"

She opened her eyes just a little, just enough. Watched him through lowered lashes as he made his move.

"Either way, it's checkmate, mudblood," he whispered.

Her win. If she opened her eyes fully, she would be able to see the chess board set in the way she'd envisioned it so early on - ready for just one move, the perfect foil. The protected bishop, sweeping in to take the king.

But she found it wasn't so very important anymore.

"I don't think you know which side I want," she said to him. "Because one way, you're risking too much."

He leaned back into his chair, one arm moving over the back. "I don't think you know which side has won," he said quietly.

Her brow creased, and she opened her eyes to stare at him across the table and the near untouched tea. "No one's won yet," she said.

But he gestured at the board, and she saw that she'd been wrong.

His protected knight had taken her pawn, moving into a square that had, until her previous move, been protected itself. She'd blocked her own movement.

"Either way," he repeated. "It's checkmate."

She got up then, trembling just a little as she tried to think like him, tried to understand.

"In game or in reality?" she whispered, staring at the victorious black king and the fallen white.

"Come now," he told her. "The real game's not over yet. How could I say?"

But he'd been ahead of her, the whole time. He _had_ known which side would win.

"I don't know," she said, sitting down again with her head in her hands, feeling defeated. "I don't know."

He rose from his own seat, then, to put a hand on her shoulder. It was strangely warm.

"Ask me," he said.

But she said nothing.

His hand moved to her chin, forcing her to look at him. "_Ask_ me."

And she did.

"Is it over?"

And then, he responded with the last thing she would imagine, the last thing anyone would expect Draco Malfoy to say. "Does it matter? We both know you'll fight to the bitter end anyway."

She smiled suddenly.

"Yes." Then- "And you?"

He brought his mouth down to her ear, his breath tickling at it. "I'm on your side. In everything but chess."

Her hand moved to grip his tie, pulling him around to face her, bringing their faces close enough to feel but not to touch.

"You win," she told him, her eyes looking directly into his.

And then, quite calmly, she pushed him away and used her hand to straighten his tie. "But every game I play, I get better... and one of these days, I won't lose. _We_ won't."

His eyes glinted, amused. "Oh good. I was beginning to think you had no backbone at all."

Hermione laughed, and leaned in to kiss him.


End file.
